Bank Employees’ Federation of India has urged Finance Minister Arun Jaitley not to keep those who have defaulted on repaying student loans out of bank jobs.
In a letter to the minister, BEFI pointed out that in a recent recruitment advertisement by State Bank of India, one of the conditions for applying was that ‘candidates with record of default in repayment of loans/credit card dues and/or against whose name adverse reports of CIBIL or other external agencies are available are not eligible.’
BEFI noted that there could be a number of aspiring applicants to bank jobs who would have taken education loans and failed to repay. “Such borrowers should not be equated and considered at par with wilful defaulters in the strict commercial sense of the term,” BEFI pointed out in the letter. “It is very natural that this group of borrowers can start repaying their debts only when gainfully employed. Closing the doors of employment to them would not only put them to hardship but would also adversely affect the prospects of recovering the debts by the concerned lending institutions.”
BEFI wanted the Finance Minister to advise bank authorities “to add an appropriate rider” in the application norms to ensure that the education-loan defaulters are not kept out of the jobs of SBI or any other public sector bank.